Garment hanger



March 1959 r L. s. RELLER ETAL I ,8 0

GARMENT HANGER Filed Jan. 31, 1957 for Her 5. 62m w Fflfllf/IJ UnitedStates Patent Office 2,876,940 Patented Mar. 10, 1959 GARMENT HANGERLouis S. Reller and Lucille S. Reller, Washington, Iowa ApplicationJanuary 31, 1957, Serial No. 637,451

4 Claims. (Cl. 223-93) This invention relates to a garment hanger thatis capable of rigidly anchoring a garment thereto against accidentaldetachment, and is an improvement on the hanger disclosed in ourco-pending application, Serial No. 607,153, filed August 30, 1956.

Coat or garment hangers are very old. They usually consist of an arcuatehorizontal bar and a centrally located hook portion which is adapted todetachably extend over a horizontal supporting rod. While such hangersare successful in holding relatively heavy buttoned coats, they are notsuccessful in holding lightweight, flimsy garments, such as dresses,blouses, formals, slips, or like. With such garments the shoulder strapportions slide downwardly and outwardly on the arcuate bar and, havingpassed the outer end or ends of the bar,

drop from the hanger. Furthermore, lifting the hanger and garment ontoor from a horizontal closet supporting bar is most difiicult toaccomplish without the garment slipping off of the hanger. Also inremoving or replacing other adjacent loaded hangers, the garments areoften accidentally removed and dropped from their respective hangers.Some attempt has been made to solve this problem by forming slot hooksin the top ends of the horizontal bar. However, such slot openings arefixed as to position and when used have a tendency to distort and/orwrinkle the garment being held. While the de vice of our co-pendingapplication, herebefore identified, did maintain a garment on the hangerwings, it had a tendency to wrinkle the garment being held.

Therefore, the principal object of this invention is to provide agarment hanger having a garment securing means that will successfullyhold the garment on the hanger without wrinkling the garment.

A further object of our invention is to provide a garment hanger havinga garment securing means that may be easily and quickly adjusted toaccommodate different types of garments and different widths of garmentsbetween the shoulder strap portions.

A still further object of our invention is to provide a garment hangerthat has a fastening means that is easily and quickly actuated.

Still further objects of this invention are to provide an efficientgarment hanger that is economical in manufacture, durable in use, andrefined in appearance.

These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.

Our invention consists in the construction, arrangements, andcombination, of the various parts of the device, whereby the objectscontemplated are attained as hereinafter more fully set forth,specifically pointed out in our claims, and illustrated in theaccompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a front view of our garment hanger in use,

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of the garment securing means, and more fullyillustrates its construction,

Fig. 3 is a cross sectional view of the fastener means taken on line 3-3of Fig. l, and

Fig. 4 is a modified form of construction of the spring loaded garmentfastening means.

In our drawings we show only one fastening means for engaging one strapof a dress or like. However, if desired, two fastening means may be usedfor securing both garment straps. However, as both fastening means wouldbe identical, We will only designate the single unit fastener.

We have used the numeral 10 to designate the horizontal curved hangerbar. This bar is of the common type and, as well known, curvesdownwardly and outwardly in both directions from its hook 11. We willfirst describe the structure shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3. On'

this bar 10 and at one side of the hook 11, we form a vertical slotopening 12. This elongated slot opening extends vertically completelythrough the bar, as shown in Fig. 3. The numeral 13 designates a coilspring vertically arranged in the slot 12. On the lower end of the thetop surface of the coat hanger rod 10, as shown in Fig. 2. The plate 16is elongated and extends longitudinally of the hanger bar 10. The pointon the underside of the plate where the spring 13 is secured is 'laterally centrally located and closer to the end of the plate that isadjacent the hook 11 than it is to the end most distant from the hook.The coil spring 13, by being anchored to the stop foot 14, yieldinglyholds the plate 16 downwardly onto the top of the hanger bar. Anysuitable handle or grip means may be placed on the plate 16 tofacilitate the manual lifting upwardly of the plate away from the hangerbar and against the action of the spring 13. In the drawings we show twohandle ears 17 and 18, back to back and curved away from each other, asshown in Fig. 3. By manually grasping these two ears, the plate may beslidably moved (with the spring 13 and foot 14) outwardly or inwardly onthe hanger bar to accommodate different types and sizes of garmentsbeing supported on the hanger. In Fig. 1 we use the numeral 19 todesignate a garment having a portion 20 extending over one end portionof the bar 10. After the garment is so placed, the ears 17 and 18 aregrasped and our device positioned so that the free end portion of theplate will extend over the garment portion 20. The coil spring willyieldingly pull the plate downwardly on the garment shoulder area,thereby yieldingly clamping it to the hanger bar and thus preventing theaccidental detachment of the garment from the hanger. To release thegarment it is merely necessary to raise the plate and permit the garmentto be removed in the usual manner. Inasmuch as the garment is onlyclamped between the top surface of the hanger bar and the plate, thereis no chance of damaging, harming, or wrinkling the garment. In Fig. 4we have formed an elongated slot 25 horizontally through the hanger barinstead of vertically as shown in Fig. 2. The numeral 26 designates aninverted U-housing slidably embracing the top of the hanger bar. A pin27 extends through the slot 25 and the housing 26. Pivoted to thehousing 26 is a tongue plate 28. This tongue plate extends outwardly onthe top of the bar 10, and then upwardly to form a handle portion 29, asshown in Fig. 4. This tongue plate has a width substantially that of thehanger bar. The numeral 30 designates a spring means on the housing andcontacting the tongue plate for yieldingly holding the tongue platedownwardly onto a garment sleeve portion of a garment on the hanger. Theaction is substantially the same as described for the structure showninFig. 1. a The device shown in Fig.-'rnay be also slid outwardly orinwardly on the bar 10 for adjustrnent. To remove a garment nanb'eifigheld, the

handle portion 29 is lifted thereby raising the tongue plate from thegarment.

Some changes maybeniade in theconst ruc tion and arrangerrrent of ourgarment han ger without departing from the real spirit and purpose ofour invention, and it is our intention tocover by our claims, anymodified forms of str icture or use of mechanical equivalents which maybe reasonably included with their scope.

We claim:

1. In combination, a coat hanger having an elongated ssr'pornon havingan elongated vertical slot extending longitudinally thereof, a plateabove the top of said bar portion, a foot stop below the bottom of saidbar pornan, and a means extending in said slot connected to said plateand said foot step for moving said plate in a direction toward the topof said bar anics; said plate, said'foot stop and said means capableofbeingjadjustably slidjre'lative to the longitudinal length of said bar.

2. In combination, a coat hanger having an elongated ba'r portion havingan elongated vertical slot extending longitudinally thereof, a plateabove the top of said bar portion, a foot stop below the bottom of saidbar portion, and a resilient means extending in said slot' connected tosaid plate and said foot stop for moving said plate in a directiontoward the top of said bar portion;-

said'plate, said foot stop and said resilient niea'ns' capable of beingadjustably slid relative to the longittidinal length of said bar.

4' '1 3: In combination, a coat' hanger having" an elor'igatd barportion having an elongated vertical slot extending portion, a foot stopbelow the bottom of said bar portion, and a resilient means extending insaid slot connected to said plate and said foot stop for moving saidplate in a direction toward the top of said bar portion; said foot stophaving a portion extending upwardly into said slot; said plate, saidfoot stop and said resilient means capable of beingadjustably slidrelative to the longitudinal'length of said bar.

ReEerences'Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS1,316,618 Johnson Sept. 23, 19 19 1,610,194 Begy Dec. 7; 1 2Z 1,712,899Nickerson May 14:, 19 2 9 2,015,281 Obrdw Sept. 24, 1935

